I love Cheryl Stahle's journaling suggestions

I also met Cheryl Stahle while we were co-panelists on a Google+ hangout about writing life stories. I’m so glad that you’ll also get to know about Cheryl and her book, Slices of Life: the Art and Craft of Memoir Writing. I hope you'll also resonate with her journaling suggestions as I do.

Journaling Towards Healing
by Cheryl Stahle

Grief.  Unmentionable.  A taboo topic.  If we don’t acknowledge the presence of grief maybe it will disappear.  But often it doesn’t.  Ted Schwartz, the surviving member of Ted & Lee (now Ted & Co www.tedandcompany.com) has recently published his memoir addressing grief at the loss of his business partner, creative muse, fellow actor and best friend entitled Laughter is a Sacred Space.  Ted has transformed his memoir into a one-man stage show that immortalizes the legacy Lee left through his suicide while leaving Ted to reinvent himself.  Ted is currently touring the United States bringing his memoir to life through a genre outside of a print book.  And by blending mediums (stage and writing), Ted is reaching a broader audience about the healing that comes after suicide and the resulting emotions consuming survivors: anger, remorse, guilt and the pervasive feeling of what more could I have done to prevent this?  Ted shares his battle between what is real life and what is acting now that his partner and best friend has moved on.   Sharing emotions and the slice of life surrounding Lee’s suicide first in print led to the creation of this play.

Cheryl and Ted Schwartz

Madeline Sharples also deals with grief using a multi-genre format in her book Leaving the Hall Light On.  Madeline’s son Paul also committed suicide resulting from his bipolar illness.  Madeline wanted to share with others her story of the parent of a child with mental illness, suicide and grieving.  Like Ted, Madeline faced guilt and a feeling of failure for not helping her son sooner.  What makes Madeline’s book unique is her combination of poetry and prose to tell the story of her son and her grieving process.  Denial and anger emerge in the first chapter with the poem One Year where Madeline shares her inner secret:  she is playacting through life without her son, just as Ted did with the loss of Lee.

Both Ted and Madeline used writing and journaling to capture their emotions and memoires through journaling.  Journaling is a useful tool for all writers but in particular, a grief journal can help capture the feelings that cannot be expressed freely or openly.  You can journal in so many different styles as a way to unlock the emotions that get stuffed deep inside of us during grieving.

Journaling is a creative multi-genre approach to handling emotions.  A multi-genre journal contains lists, photos, stories, poems, letters,  newspaper clippings,  drawings, color all created to release the feelings associated with grief.

If done over time, journaling can measure the healing process when you compare then vs. now and how you have changed since the initial shock of a loss.  A journal also shows survival and regrowth.

Journaling can begin as simply as answering a sentence starter in a notebook:  I feel…

When ready to engage in a grief journal consider the following approaches as you move through the healing journey:

1. Use photographs and write about the memoires associated with them.
2. Find an inspirational quote or poem and use that as a starter to share your own feelings.
3. Select a song relevant to your relationship with the person who has passed, listen to it then write or draw the images that come to your mind as you listen.
4. Make a quick list of your 10 favorite memories together.
5. Don’t feel obligated to write everyday but do something even if it is to just draw an emoticon representing your emotions.
6. Select a color that represents the person you have loss and describe the color and the emotions that flow from you as you write.
7. Write a letter to your loved one expressing how you feel.

What you “do” with this grief journal depends upon you.  Think of journaling as a gift towards healing.  Sometimes you may feel empowered to share what you learned during your healing process.  Maybe you will venture down the path that both Ted and Madeline did and create a tribute piece to a loved one using a combination of genres or a traditional memoir.   But whatever you attempt, do something to capture your healing and allow yourself a time and place to express your loss. 

About Cheryl: I absolutely love Cheryl's suggestions for starting a journaling habit - especially that she suggests introducing photos, music, and color. 

Multitasking writer enjoys chaos and chardonnay Cheryl Stahle, memoirist, writing coach, teacher and author has set as her life mission to help people tell their life stories using her years of experience as a writing coach combined with a slightly off-center perspective of the world.  Her latest book Slices of Life: the Art and Craft of Memoir Writing available at www.yourbestwritinggroup.com as well as Amazon and Doylestown Bookshop (and frequently a box of them sits in the trunk of my car for impulse buyers).  By day, she teaches English for a cyber school and runs writing circles to help authors of all ages and abilities capture life stories.  Check out Cheryl’s  writing circles, workshops and journaling activities at www.yourbestwritinggroup.com or MeetUp.  

Introducing my new writing friend, Deborah Kalan

Deborah and I met in Pilates class. We never said more than hello for about six months until one day I mentioned I had to rush away after class because I had a lot of work to do. She asked what I did, and when I said I am a writer, her eyes lit up. She said, “I’m a writer too.” And our friendship was off and running. I’ve read a lot of her stories, and I totally agree. She is a writer. I’m so happy to introduce her work to you.

My Writing Life

By Deborah Kalan

I have been writing seriously since my eleventh birthday when I received a leatherette diary the color of blue Irises. The diary was secured with a little strap that had a gold lock and two gold keys. On the front of it were the words “Dear Diary.” Each page was divided into five sections of about five lines, which in my 11-year-old mind, restricted me to extremely brief entries. 

In those days, I mostly wrote about boys. The cute ones, the creepy ones, the ones that liked me, the ones that I liked who didn’t like me. Because the blank pages were there, I felt compelled to write. I remember always feeling a sense of accomplishment, completion, when I finished my daily entry.

As my writing progressed, I wrote in a variety of journals, which I often spent hours choosing. A new journal is like a new beginning for me. The cover has to speak to me. The size and weight of it needs to feel just right. I often have two or more journals that I write in simultaneously. At one period in my life when I was going through a difficult time with my daughter, I had a “negative” journal and a “positive” one. It helped me to keep the bad karma in a separate place so that it wouldn’t spill over and spoil the good stuff.

In the beginning, along with journaling, I wrote children’s stories.  But, as my children grew and matured, I began to lose the child’s voice that was in me. It was then that my writing turned to grown up fiction, as well as essays and poetry. I knew I had a talent for writing, but because I rarely submitted my work and was not published, I had a difficult time calling myself a writer. One day I read something that said,  “if you write, you’re a writer.” I have since kept that as a sort of mantra for my self-identity. 

Other than my husband and my beautiful 91-year-old mother, who are my biggest fans, I rarely shared my writing with anyone. Just recently, through the encouragement of a dear friend of mine who is an accomplished author, I have begun to expose myself through my writing on various social network sights. After working on a piece, tweaking it, re-tweaking it, reading and rereading it, I paste it, and post it and swallow a satisfying gulp of achievement.  And then I wait. I check the sight every few minutes at first. Did anyone see it? Did anyone like it? Did they comment? And then the kudos start to come in. Sometimes there are a few comments. Sometimes a lot and sometimes none. It feels great to send my words out to the universe and hope that something I say, some group of words or stack of sentences might affect someone in a positive, reflective way. That’s when I know if I’m asked “what do you do”? I can casually and with great confidence say. “I’m a writer.”

About Deborah: The only problem with Deborah’s living arrangement is that I don’t get to see enough of her. I’m so happy to have this wonderful new friend in my life.

Deborah likes to describe her dual residences as living “bi-coastal.” She and her husband Harvey, of 41 plus years, and their “senior” dog Jackson, split their time between their homes in California. One is near the coast of Manhattan Beach and the other one is near the “coast” of Calabasas Lake. They have two grown and married children and two amazing grandchildren who are also Deborah’s devoted fans.

You can find Deborah on Facebook and read some of her stories on Storylane.

Mike O'Mary's thoughts about book promotion

I couldn't leave my wonderful Dream of Things publisher, Mike O'Mary, out of my guest lineup. He has brought a whole new life to my book. His ideas for promotion have been priceless. I never would have known about most of this stuff had I gone on to self-publish after my first publisher went out of business. Please welcome Mike O'Mary and take lots of notes.

Time and Commitment are Keys to Book Promotion

by Mike O'Mary, My Dream of Things Publisher

As the publisher of the trade paperback and e-book editions of Madeline Sharples’ Leaving the Hall LightOn, I’ve had the pleasure of working with someone who really “gets it” when it comes to what an author needs to do after the book is written. In fact, I’ve already told other authors about Madeline and encouraged them to follow her and learn from her example.

When Madeline first contacted me about becoming her publisher, I was intrigued. The hard cover edition of her book had good reviews, but then her publisher went out of business. I read Madeline’s memoir and was blown away by the story of her son’s bipolar disorder and suicide. But what really got me was the story of Madeline’s journey in the aftermath of the suicide.

It was obvious to me that Madeline’s memoir is a very powerful book. Still, I didn’t make a final decision about becoming Madeline’s publisher until we talked about what would be involved in promoting her book. The reality is that writing a book is only half of the journey. Once the book is published, the second leg of the trip begins—and it’s all about promoting your book. (It’s sort of like climbing a mountain. Finishing your book is like reaching the summit. It’s an exhilarating feeling. But you’re not done. You need to come down from the mountain and tell us about it!)

Unfortunately, not all writers understand the importance of the second half of the journey. They think they are done when the book is written and published, and that a good book should sell itself. That’s not the way it works though, and when Madeline and I talked, it was clear to me that she understood this and was willing to work hard to promote her book. In fact, I’ve never seen anybody work harder at it.

One of the things Madeline and I discussed early on was a list of things that I could do as her publisher, things she could do as the author, and things we could do together. Through these and other efforts, Madeline’s memoir reached the #1 ranking among memoirs by women (out of 2,800+) in Amazon’s Kindle store in September, garnered 80 reader reviews on Amazon and 45 ratings and 17 reviews on Goodreads, and sold more than 1,000 copies during September and October. 

Here are some of the things we did:

Beef up the book’s Amazon page: Madeline has her book on her blog, and I have it on the Dream of Things website, but I treat the book’s Amazon page as its main presence on the Internet. That’s where most of the sales will occur, and the page can include all kinds of content, most of which can be managed through Amazon’s Author Central. We linked all of the editions (hard cover, trade paperback and e-book), added the “Search Inside” feature, expanded the book description to include blurbs from reviewers, selected categories for rankings, added the book to Shelfari.com (which is an Amazon subsidiary that feeds even more info to Amazon), etc. 

Reviews: It’s a challenge to get reviews from the big name reviewers, but I believe reader reviews are just as important. Madeline has asked many people to review her book. The key here is don’t be shy. Ask friends, relatives, subject matter experts, bloggers…anybody who might be willing to post a review.

Goodreads giveaway: We gave away free copies of the book to five people drawn at random from a list of people who signed up for the drawing over three weeks. The winners agree to review the book, and many people added the book to their “to read” list. (I followed up with everybody who did not win and offered them a 33% discount on the book.)

Virtual book tour (aka “blog tour”): Madeline did a blog tour when the book first came out in hard cover, and she is doing another one now. You can pay someone to organize a blog tour for you (I believe Madeline used WOW! Women On Writing to organize a tour for the release of the hard cover edition), or you can do it yourself, as we (mostly Madeline!) have been doing this time around.

Subscribe to HARO (www.HelpaReporter.com): HARO is a free service that connects reporters with subject matter experts. A reporter puts out a call for experts on a topic, and then you can respond with a brief “pitch” that tells how you can help them. It’s great publicity if you get interviewed or featured in a story.

Events: I know Madeline has participated in a number of book reading/signing events in California, and she also traveled to Chicago for a series of three readings and a radio interview over a whirlwind weekend in September.

KDP Select: I think this is the most significant thing we’ve done so far, and I think this is a great “secret” that every author should know. I enrolled Madeline’s book in the Amazon KDP Select program. That means the e-book is available exclusively through Amazon for 90 days. In return, Amazon Prime members are able to “borrow” the book from Amazon for free (we still get paid for “borrows”), and we can give away free copies of the e-book for five of the 90 days. In early September, we did a three-day giveaway, and promoted the heck out of it via a bunch of websites and e-newsletters that cater to Kindle readers. We gave away 14,000 copies during those three days. If you’re a first-time author with a small publisher, that kind of publicity is invaluable. One week after the free giveaway ended, Madeline was ranked #1 among paid sales of memoirs by women in the Kindle store. The giveaway also helped increase the number of reader reviews.

Other things: We’ve also been seeking media interviews (very challenging without a publicist, but we had a nice interview on WGN radio in Chicago); we’re doing a little bit of advertising online (again, targeting owners of e-readers); and we’ve talked about entering Madeline’s book in a contest or two. 

Bottom line: there is almost no limit to what you can do; it’s mainly a matter of time and commitment!

About Mike O'Mary: I am so fortunate to have found Mike O'Mary and Dream of Things. I am definitely one of the dreamers he started his publishing business for.

Mike O’Mary is founding dreamer of Dream of Things, and a writer of essays, fiction, drama, and sketch comedy. He has published stories and essays in the Sunday magazines of the Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Baltimore Sun, Cleveland Plain Dealer and Detroit Free Press, and in the Catholic Digest. He was a regular commentator on WNIJ – Northern Illinois Public Radio, doing weekly commentaries as part of the local segment of National Public Radio’s Morning Edition program. He has also written and produced sketch comedy in Chicago, and he is a regular contributor to Freelance-Zone. Mike has a BA in Economics and English-Writing from Knox College and a MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana. He also attended the Second City Comedy Writing Program.

“I started Dream of Things because I wanted to find ways for us to work together more often. I also hope to make a lot of new friends and to work with many of them. Dream of Things is a place where other “dreamers” can share their ideas and stories and have fun in the process.”